If you don’t count the mass amount of app “updates” in the news feed, Facebook has done an okay job on limiting spam (some apps on the other hand like to spam at will). That seems to have changed about 10 days ago. Someone has been generating large numbers of fake accounts that only have two pieces of data: a profile picture (usually an indecent picture of a woman) and a single wall entry about winning a free iPhone (with a link to the site).
Some how I’ve ended up on their list of people to abuse with friend requests. Days with 20 or more friend requests from these fake iPhone give away accounts is not unusual. That is no where near the number of spam emails and comments I get on an average day, but I’d rather see a trend towards less spam, not more. That and Gmail does a reasonable job of filtering out email spam and Akismet takes care of the comment spam.
Facebook is a giant target for spammers, with so many people actively using the site it is a temptation they simply can’t pass up. Finding ways to crack down on fake accounts is the major issue. Once a fake account is in the system then it has the potential for relaying spam. The ideal solution would be to identify these accounts as they are being created and prevent them from becoming active.
I’m not a big user of Facebook, but I wish them the best of luck at solving this issue, because reducing the amount of spam on the Internet makes the world a better place.